Training English/French interpreters working for institutions examining asylum applications – an experience at ISM Interprétariat

International audience English is one of the ten most requested languages for asylum applications in France, generating a huge need for interpreters (OFPRA 2022). However, there is a significant gap between English that is taught in university courses and English that is spoken by most English-speaking asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom are Nigerians. These migrants use an idiom oscillating between English and Nigerian pidgin (an English lexifier creole), in forms of the language that can be creolized, pidginized, and decreolized depending on social origins and situations (Faraclas 1996/2013). Moreover, studies have shown that unknown accents, cultural specificities, and language level represent an additional burden for the interpreter (Bowen 2000; Pöchhacker 2004).Thus, after discussing how this discrepancy generated recruitment difficulties, a significant turnover, and complaints from clients, we will recall how the analysis of interpreters’ objections at the National Court for Asylum Seekers (CNDA) and the French Office for refugees and stateless persons (OFPRA) showed the need to develop specific training (Demaret 2022). Indeed, there is no training adapted to this need in France, which explains the shortcomings in initial training, which are also frequent among interpreters working in public services (Roat 2000; Ben Ameur 2010; Jacobsen 2012). Then, we will discuss the history of the specific training that has been set up for this purpose at ISM Interprétariat, since as usual in the framework of public service interpreting, the interpretating service provider is the one who bear the burden of training (Sauvêtre 1996). We propose to share not only its evolution and its results, but also its content, which includes linguistic elements (Nigerian accent, specific lexicon of Nigerian pidgin), socio-cultural elements relevant to the context of the asylum application of English speakers, but also ethical reminders and the basics of note taking and theory, since the study of the theoretical aspects of translation allow a significant improvement in quality in the short term (Gile 2005).